Animal {gismu}

[John Cowan <cowan@SNARK.THYRSUS.COM>]

Using the wonderful tool WordNet (from Princeton University), I've examined
our gismu relating to animals, as a simple test case, and I've found a few
things that seem to me to be holes.  At the end of this message is the tree of
gismu representing the standard taxonomy under Animalia (some levels have
been omitted for clarity).  On each line, the first field is a colon-separated
pathname of the taxa to which the animal belongs; the second field is the
gismu; the third field is the keyword, and the remaining fields are synonyms.

Animals are divided into arthropods, vertebrates, and "worms", which is a
cover term for almost all other invertebrates (squids/octopuses perhaps
excepted).  Arthropods include insects and spiders.  Insects can be
lice/fleas, ants, bees, butterflies, flies, or roaches.

Under vertebrates, we have amphibians, reptiles (with subcategory snakes),
fish, birds (with geese, ducks, chickens, and turkeys specially
distinguished because they are domesticated and edible), and mammals.

Mammals include carnivores (canids, felids, and ursids), rabbits, rodents
(rats and mice), primates (human beings and monkeys/apes), elephants,
equids (true horses and donkeys), and artiodactyls or even-toed creatures
(including camels, pigs, deer, cattle, goats, and sheep).

PROPOSAL:  I suggest that we need >high-quality< lujvo, or else new gismu,
for the following kinds of animals right away.  Entries for them
appear in the tree below, with "#nnnn" in place of a gismu.

        1) Crustacea (lobsters, shrimp): existing lujvo are shell-spider
        (but all arthropods have shells) and claw-spider, extending "spider"
        to mean "any non-Insecta in Arthropoda".

        2) Orthoptera (grasshoppers, locusts, crickets): no existing lujvo
        that I know of.  These insects are major pests and as such economically
        important in many agricultural regions.

        3) Coleoptera (beetles): no existing lujvo that I know of.  Perhaps
        beetles are just the default kind of insect (most insect, indeed most
        animal, species are beetles).

        4) Cetacea (whales, dolphins): the usual lujvo is mammal-fish or
        fish-mammal, which I consider to be a dreadful submission to
        folk taxonomy.

        5) Chiroptera (bats): the usual lujvo are things like flying-mouse and
        bird-mammal, which I think are even worse than fish-mammal.

Of course there are lots of animals which aren't included under any of
these forms, but they tend to be obscure critters that can be handled
with le'avla.

Comments?


Invertebrata curnu worm
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Arachnida jukni spider arachnid crustacean crab lobster
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Crustacea: #0001 crustacean crab lobster shrimp
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta cinki insect arthropod bug beetle
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta civla louse flea blood-sucker
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Coleoptera #0002 beetle ladybug
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Dictyoptera jalra cockroach
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Diptera sfani fly
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Hymenoptera:Apoidea bifce bee wasp hornet
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Hymenoptera:Formicidae manti ant
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Lepidoptera toldi butterfly moth
Invertebrata:Arthropoda:Insecta:Orthoptera #0003 grasshopper locust cricket
Vertebrata:Amphibia banfi amphibian
Vertebrata:Aves cipni bird avian fowl
Vertebrata:Aves:Anatidae datka duck
Vertebrata:Aves:Anatidae gunse goose gander
Vertebrata:Aves:Gallinaceae jipci chicken
Vertebrata:Aves:Gallinaceae xruki turkey
Vertebrata:Mammalia mabru mammal 'animal' beast
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Camelidae kumte camel llama alpaca vicuna
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Ruminantia:Cervidae mirli deer elk moose
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Ruminantia:Bovidae:Bos bakni bovine cow cattle
 kine ox bull steer beef-producer
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Ruminantia:Bovidae:Capra kanba goat angora
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Ruminantia:Bovidae:Ovis lanme sheep lamb ewe
 ram
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Artiodactyla:Suidae xarju pig hog pork-producer
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Canidae gerku dog canine
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Canidae labno wolf lupine
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Canidae lorxu fox
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Felidae cinfo lion
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Felidae mlatu cat
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Felidae tirxu tiger leopard jaguar
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Carnivora:Ursidae cribe bear ursoid
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Cetacea #0004 whale dolphin orca
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Chiroptera #0005 bat
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Leporidae ractu rabbit hare
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Perissodactyla:Equidae xasli donkey jackass
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Perissodactyla:Equidae xirma horse colt mare stallion pony
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Primates remna human
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Primates smani monkey ape simian baboon chimpanzee
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Proboscidea xanto elephant
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Rodentia smacu mouse
Vertebrata:Mammalia:Rodentia ratcu rat rat
Vertebrata:Pisces finpe fish
Vertebrata:Reptilia respa reptile
Vertebrata:Reptilia:Ophidia since snake serpent

--
John Cowan      cowan@snark.thyrsus.com         ...!uunet!lock60!snark!cowan
                        e'osai ko sarji la lojban.